The AAM community notes the passing of longtime Museum member and artist Ellen Grim Harter of Bethlehem. Ellen and her husband Michael’s more than three decades of support is part of a legacy that stretches back to her grandfather, Museum founder Walter Baum.

“Ellen inherited from her grandfather a talent and love of painting,” recalls AAM Honorary Trustee Martha Hutson Saxton, Ph.D., who interviewed Ellen for her definitive monograph Walter Emerson Baum, 1884-1956, published in conjunction with a 1996 AAM exhibition. “Trained as an artist, she was a quiet and studious person who painted with a poetic and sensitive response to what she observed in life. Her paintings are exhibited and collected today. It was my pleasure to know her and her family. She was a gentle person, who smiled easily and was generous with her time and knowledge in aiding others like myself. I particularly enjoyed her reminisces of the Baum family, which added to the book a feeling for the interactions among the family members of each generation. I thank her now again.”

Ellen Grim Harter passed on Friday, March 26, 2021. For her sustaining membership and her commitment to art we remember her and her family’s lasting impact on the Museum and our community.